In Which I Come Crawling Back. AGAIN.

By Sue:

Jen emailed me a few days ago to find out if I remembered that this little weight loss blog we started still existed.  Which – well – yes.  And I’ve thought about posting or visiting.  Sort of.  But kind of in that way where a friend wants you to come visit, and you’d like to see her, but not really, because the friend just lost a ton of weight, and you on the other hand GAINED weight, and you know when you get together she’ll be all fabulous, and you’ll be all toad-like, but your friend will still feel compelled to say, OH, NO, you look GREAT, and you’ll both know she is lying, and it’ll all just be very awkward and depressing.

Part of me said, you know, if I just never, never, NEVER look at the blog, that will mean that it does not exist.  Because I control the universe with my MIND. 

It was all working out very well for me until Jen emailed me the other day and said something along the lines of, “Sue, you know how you haven’t posted here in approximately seven thousand years?  Should I assume that means you don’t want to be involved?”  (Except she said it diplomatically and supportively, as she tends to do.) 

I emailed her back, all, “Um, I am trying to deny the existence of that blog, because totally skinny people do not need to participate in weight loss blogs, and you are seriously killing my Denial Kool-Aid buzz, so, HELLO, cooperation please.”  Well.  I said something like that anyway.  Only with more groveling.

Really though.  I need to get back on the wagon.  I’ve been thinking about it for weeks now.   I’m so out of control in terms of my eating and lack of exercise.  It doesn’t feel good.  Earlier this week the capris I was wearing (my FAT capris even) ripped open in the back.  Luckily, I was in the middle of my family room at the time, with only my two pre-schoolers around to point and laugh.  When it happened I immediately started thinking of ways I could make it funny on my blog.  

Except it didn’t feel funny.  It felt like the last straw.

Two years ago I lost 45 pounds.  I still needed to lose another 40 or so, but I felt comfortable and healthy.  The pictures up at the top of my regular blog were taken right about then, and you can kind of see what I’m talking about – I was still very chubby, but I felt good.   I was at a comfortable level of fat for me – wearing “normal” sizes from “normal” stores, with only one extra chin.  I wasn’t about to wear shorts, but I had days when I felt pretty cute.  I was in that place where you know you have more weight to lose, but it wasn’t this daily, depressing, not wanting to look in the mirror THING.

I managed to maintain the loss for over a year.  Until we lost our business and found ourselves careening toward financial diseaster, and I rediscovered the joy of serious binge eating.   I was so stressed out.  I felt entitled to eat, entitled to comfort myself with food, even as I watched the number on the scale creep upward. 

(Big sigh.)

Poo.

I’ve gained back 25 of those pounds.  (Whispering: And I feel gross.)     

If you read my blog, you know we just moved.   It took two loads of hauling stuff from one state to the other, over two different weekends, and unfortunately we had to go about a week-a-half without our washer and dryer.  Once they were safely back in my laundry room, I had to do (seriously) something like 17 or 18 loads of laundry.  The physical exertion of sorting, carrying, folding, and putting away, with repeated bending over and standing up and sitting down and all of those things was so taxing that I STRAINED A MUSCLE in my calf.  From DOING LAUNDRY.

Ahem.  Let me repeat that.  I’m so out of shape that I got a sports injury from doing laundry. 

EGADS. 

I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin right now.  I don’t feel healthy.  I don’t feel attractive.  I don’t feel in control of my eating.  It needs to stop, and as it turns out, I’m fresh out of excuses for putting it off.

I’m thinking today would be a really good day to start.